Yeremia 4:3

4:3 Yes, ¹  the Lord has this to say

to the people of Judah and Jerusalem:

“Like a farmer breaking up hard unplowed ground,

you must break your rebellious will and make a new beginning;

just as a farmer must clear away thorns lest the seed is wasted,

you must get rid of the sin that is ruining your lives. ² 

Yeremia 9:15

9:15 So then, listen to what I, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all, ³  say. ⁴  ‘I will make these people eat the bitter food of suffering and drink the poison water of judgment. ⁵ 

Yeremia 17:6

17:6 They will be like a shrub ⁶  in the desert.

They will not experience good things even when they happen.

It will be as though they were growing in the desert,

in a salt land where no one can live.

Yeremia 27:11

27:11 Things will go better for the nation that submits to the yoke of servitude to ⁷  the king of Babylon and is subject to him. I will leave that nation ⁸  in its native land. Its people can continue to farm it and live in it. I, the Lord, affirm it!”’” ⁹ 

Yeremia 43:9

43:9 “Take some large stones ¹⁰  and bury them in the mortar of the clay pavement ¹¹  at the entrance of Pharaoh’s residence ¹²  here in Tahpanhes. Do it while the people of Judah present there are watching. ¹³ 

Yeremia 50:16

50:16 Kill all the farmers who sow the seed in the land of Babylon.

Kill all those who wield the sickle at harvest time. ¹⁴ 

Let all the foreigners return to their own people.

Let them hurry back to their own lands

to escape destruction by that enemy army. ¹⁵ 

[4:3]  ¹ tn The Hebrew particle is obviously asseverative here since a causal connection appears to make little sense.

[4:3]  ² tn Heb “Plow up your unplowed ground and do not sow among the thorns.” The translation is an attempt to bring out the force of a metaphor. The idea seems to be that they are to plow over the thorns and make the ground ready for the seeds which will produce a new crop where none had been produced before.

[9:15]  ³ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[9:15]  sn See the study notes on 2:9 and 7:3.

[9:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “Therefore, thus says the Lord…” The person is shifted from third to first to better conform with English style.

[9:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “I will feed this people wormwood and make them drink poison water.” “Wormwood” and “poison water” are not to be understood literally here but are symbolic of judgment and suffering. See, e.g., BDB 542 s.v. לַעֲנָה.

[17:6]  ⁶ tn This word occurs only here and in Jer 48:6. It has been identified as a kind of juniper, which is a short shrub with minute leaves that look like scales. For a picture and more discussion see Fauna and Flora of the Bible, 131.

[27:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.

[27:11]  ⁸ tn The words “Things will go better for” are not in the text. They are supplied contextually as a means of breaking up the awkward syntax of the original which reads “The nation which brings its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and subjects itself to him, I will leave it…”

[27:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[43:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Take some large stones in your hands.”

[43:9]  ¹¹ tn The meaning of the expression “mortar of the clay pavement” is uncertain. The noun translated “mortar” occurs only here and the etymology is debated. Both BDB 572 s.v. מֶלֶט and KBL 529 s.v. מֶלֶט give the meaning “mortar.” The noun translated “clay pavement” is elsewhere used of a “brick mold.” Here BDB 527 s.v. מַלְבֵּן 2 gives “quadrangle” and KBL 527 s.v. מַלְבֵּן 2 gives “terrace of bricks.” HALOT 558 s.v. מֶלֶט and מַלְבֵּן 2 give “loamy soil” for both words, seeing the second noun as a dittography or gloss of the first (see also note c in BHS).

[43:9]  ¹² sn All the commentaries point out that this was not Pharaoh’s (main) palace but a governor’s residence or other government building that Pharaoh occupied when he was in Tahpanhes.

[43:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “in Tahpanhes in the eyes of the men of Judah.”

[50:16]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Cut off the sower from Babylon, and the one who wields the sickle at harvest time.” For the meaning “kill” for the root “cut off” see BDB 503 s.v. כָּרַת Qal.1.b and compare usage in Jer 11:19. The verb is common in this nuance in the Hiphil, cf. BDB 504 s.v. כָּרַת Hiph, 2.b.

[50:16]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Because of [or out of fear of] the sword of the oppressor, let each of them turn toward his [own] people and each of them flee to his [own] country.” Compare a similar expression in 46:16 where the reference was to the flight of the mercenaries. Here it refers most likely to foreigners who are counseled to leave Babylon before they are caught up in the destruction. Many of the commentaries and English versions render the verbs as futures but they are more likely third person commands (jussives). Compare the clear commands in v. 8 followed by essentially the same motivation. The “sword of the oppressor,” of course, refers to death at the hands of soldiers wielding all kinds of weapons, chief of which has been a reference to the bow (v. 14).